Information security: Secure Office 365 Documents

Information security is a must for your online business. When business information is moved to cloud servers, there should not be any compromise on the information security. The best possible information security features should be implemented so that sensitive information will not land in wrong hands. There are many ways to secure your office 365 documents.

The following measures can be followed in this context:

Password policy

Message encryption

Rights management

Data Loss Prevention

Password policy

To secure data and service access, you should use password policy in the organization. Expiration settings vary based on user identities. Passwords will expire after 90 days by default for cloud-only users. Passwords should expire after a certain date and the password should not be too simple as well. As users will not be interested in using new passwords quite often, strong password policy should be implemented across the organization. Thus, data and services will be secured in an effortless manner.

Message encryption

Sending encrypted messages from Office 365 is possible. When messages are sent in encrypted form, it’s hard to decrypt without having the key. The recipient will be able to decrypt and reply to your message without any issues.

Rights management

Documents will be protected through rights management. In this way, you will ensure that independent recipients will view or modify these documents.

Data Loss prevention feature

You can restrict certain documents being saved to SharePoint online. The sharing on OneDrive for Business and external sharing should be prevented or restricted. Confidential or personal data should not be uploaded or shared. It should not be communicated through emails. Standard company forms will not be distributed in this process.

Mobile device management

You should provide conditional access to your Office 365 Tenants by protecting the data on end user’s mobile devices. It is possible to create device policies and mobile devices will be registered as corporate compliant. Administrators will gain reports on the status of these devices and they will remove corporate data and personal data will not be removed.

Multi-factor authentication

Users and data will be protected by activating additional authentication layer. Some users will be selected and they should enter the code (the text message) on their mobile phone or should answer the phone call to get access to documents. The access to information will be provided if the user can pass through the additional security layer.

Authentication through office 365 active directory

The access can be restricted to Office 365 Tenants by choosing certain IP addresses. The access can be limited based on the permissions granted in the Active Directory Authentication Library.

Apply latest Office 365 security updates

The latest Office 365 security updates should be updated and big deployments can be stopped. The XML file should be up to date and you should run Office 365 client updates as per your requirements.

OneDrive for business drive restrictions

To create sync restrictions, PowerShell commands should be created. The OneDrive for Business will be synchronized based on the machine’s connection to the domain.